God I Hope This Year is Better Than The Last
by herrealname
Summary: The Avengers celebrate New Year's together, in the best and worst possible way.


**A/N: There must be balance in all things. And alas, for all the angst and hurt/comfort written on this profile, I now balance it out with a series of really dumb, stupid, feel-good chapters of the Avengers - not forgetting their family and friends - counting down to the New Year together. Hope you enjoy!**

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 _ **"Footsteps; without a sound**_  
 _ **I'm coming home to you**_  
 _ **Snowfall; blankets the ground**_  
 _ **It covers the ugly truth**_  
 _ **Things that we hide from view"**_

 _ **\- God I Hope This Year is Better Than The Last**_ **by** _ **SYML**_

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 **31 December 2019, 8:11PM**

 **POV: Clint**

Within the first ten minutes of his arrival at the upstate facility - whereby he'd been greeted warmly by Pepper and the Stark family's one-year-old daughter, the archer had managed to catch sight of the impending trouble they were about to have that night.

As if things hadn't already gone horribly wrong the last time that Natasha had gotten a little too handsy with the equipment in a furnished lab, which had been back in 2006 - after which they had banned her from the entire Lab wing in the New York office for a full year, she was now joined by the infamous Tony Stark.

Firstly, Natasha and Tony _never_ worked together in a lab, and for good reason.

Natasha was part-genius, just much more on the medical side of science and very much less on the experimental side of science. Tony was full-on genius, and just enjoyed putting things together to observe what would happen, with little to no reservations for any of the potential physical repercussions. It was the hallmark of a typical scientist and engineer.

Them together, with no supervision whatsoever? It was an apparent nuclear meltdown just waiting to happen. So God forbid they ever conduct any science projects together, let alone breathe the same sterile space for more than two seconds.

And secondly, he had spotted a _very familiar_ hardwood box on the counter of the lab table that they were both working on. It was unmarked, and nobody else would've known the contents of the hardwood box from afar to have taken notice in the first place, but Clint was well-aware of the horrors that lay within that box.

He had learned his lesson back in 2006, an excruciatingly lonely and painful lesson in quarantine.

"Natasha, please tell me you're not experimenting with those old Russian poisons again," the archer immediately commented as soon as he had entered the lab.

"I only paralyzed you for a week, Clint. You need to let that go."

"Oh, let that go?" He scoffed. "Did you forget the part where I _nearly_ _died_ , or did that entire sequence of events just happen to blink out of existence?"

The blonde crossed her arms over her chest as she turned. "And then I saved your life. You're welcome."

He groaned aloud, oh so close to sinking to his knees and dissolving himself into a human puddle on the floor of the lab from his obvious panic. Being in the same room at the box, as well as the both of them, it left much to be desired in the deep-breathing department. As in, he didn't quite know if there was something in the air that left him feeling only a tingle in his legs, or if was just him and his anxiety around that damn box.

He gripped the table top tight with his fingers. "What are you even doing with all of this?"

"To be fair, _I'm_ experimenting with these old Russian poisons, Merida," the mechanic promptly interjected, the brand-new nickname for the archer earning him an odd look from both master assassins.

In an instant, it seemed as if they both had forgotten their little tiff over the assassin's hardwood box of toxins.

Clint had a single raised eyebrow, and Natasha actively chewed on her lip in an effort to stifle whatever teasing insult that had threatened to roll right off her tongue. Tony stilled at both odd looks, and it took him an elongated second to realize exactly what he had done. And then his jaw slackened, and then he stopped himself in his tracks just as he had been about to speak, and then he pursed his lips.

"So I've watched a couple of Disney Princess movies, big 's called _bonding with your kid_ , in case the concept of parenting has somehow gotten lost on you two _,"_ he snarked.

"Nah _,_ I think I've been parenting just fine," the archer crinkled his nose. "Don't you think so, _Cinderella, my love_?"

"Oh _Charming_ , you know you never cease to amaze me. You don't even have to ask," Natasha faux-swooned for her partner, in perfect character.

They both then shared a fit of laughter as she nudged him lightly into his side with her elbow, her hands still kept busy with whatever concoction she'd been throwing together. The concoction was turning a deep apricot color now, developing under heat. There was a sweet, tangy scent to the brew.

The mechanic mimicked their laughing fit in a mocking manner, groaning outwardly. "That's beside the point," he snapped. "Point is, Natasha isn't gonna get anywhere near these things while she's busy with her, uh... pot thingy-"

" _Kompot_ ," the blonde corrected. She then glanced over to Clint. "It's that fruit drink I used to put together for Coop and Lila when they were kids."

The archer nodded back in response, lips forming a slight 'O' shape.

"Yeah, yeah. _Again_ , point is, I'm handling the hard stuff, so you'll be just fine. I'm not gonna spritz sarin in your face or anything. There's nothing of the sort in here anyway. Don't get your panties in a bunch," Tony continued.

Clint gave the man a once over with watchful eyes, cringing to himself a little as his gaze passed over Tony's gloved hands amongst the treasure chest of ancient Russian herbs, ground powders and vials. Or as he'd rather call it, a damn Pandora's box. A shiver raced down his spine at the sight, again reminding him of the one time he'd been paralyzed from one of the box's god-forbidden contents.

And then he looked up at the older man again as he squinted to try - and fail - to read the indicated names on one of the vials. The name on the vial had been in Cyrillic script: Новичо́к.

"That doesn't make me feel any safer, Stark. I bet you don't even know what you're reading."

"Sure I do," he reassured. " _Hobnyók_."

The way he had said it, it was loud and proud, and so incredibly wrong. Again, Natasha's eyes widened and she stifled yet another laugh and an insult, with her lips pressed shut into a thin smile.

"Jesus," Clint gasped. He felt his legs go flaccid beneath him again, after which he proceeded to tap his partner on the shoulder. "Can you take over please? I'd very much like to live to see the new year."

"Nope," she popped her p's.

"Come on, Tash. We just need to hold out for a couple of hours, hit midnight, let me grab my wife and kids and haul ass outta this building right after, and then you guys can do whatever the hell you want. That sounds like a plan. Doesn't it sound like a plan?" He pleaded.

"Where's the fun in that?"

"I hate you, you know that," he began to whisper fiercely. "Sometimes I really just want to stab you in the eye and throw you into a manhole."

"Love you too, you little sasshole," she grinned.

He huffed yet again. "I hate you."

"Don't you trust me?" Tony frowned, turning to face them both with the vial rolled between two fingertips.

"No, Stark," the archer remarked exasperatedly. "Not the fuck at all. Not if you're gonna call that vial in your hand _Hobnyók_."

Natasha rolled her eyes, stirring her fruity brew. "That's Novichok."

The man's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. He promptly dropped the vial back into the box, a little less delicate than he should have.

"And if you'd rolled it right around, you could've seen it was labeled A-234," the archer added, bitter. The specific strain had been the one he'd been accidentally poisoned with the last time around, when his partner had tried to turn the fine powders into a liquid drip. Apparently, it had worked.

Tony shut the box. "What the fuck, Natasha? Why do you even have these?" He exclaimed with utter exasperation.

"I'm an assassin, Stark. Why do you think?" She deadpanned.

The older man turned about as white as a sheet, which was the first time in over a decade of their acquaintance that they had seen him like this. He then proceeded to handle the entire box with much care, and place it gently on one of the top shelves in the lab, securing it in a reinforced glass cabinet with a lock.

He sighed to himself a sigh of relief as soon as the box was locked in. "I think I'm just gonna get- Yeah, I'm gonna go get Banner."

With that, Tony stalked right out of the lab in search for his friend.

"What was he trying to do with all of that stuff again?" Clint asked. The bitter frown he'd graced upon his features eased up in light of the humorous way the mechanic's reaction had panned out.

"Get Steve drunk," she shrugged nonchalantly. "Try this."

The assassin lifted the ladle from the brew, bringing the scoop to her own lips to give her own _kompot_ a quick taste before handing it over to her partner. He sipped it as well, heeding much caution as he did, but much less caution than he would've heeded if she hadn't just tasted her own brew.

"Huh," he went, in reaction to the concoction. It tasted like peaches, with a hint of apricot and tangerines to leave a zesty aftertaste. Then he slurped the rest of the ladle. "Peachy. But please tell me you didn't put any of your toxic shit in this."

Natasha could only glare in return as she snatched the drained ladle back.

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 **Next Chapter Preview:**

 _The gathering had nearly reached its maximum capacity by the time Steve had noticed that Scott Lang and his small family had arrived. He'd arrived with Hope and his daughter, Cassie._

 _While Cassie had long joined the rest of the kids and teens present at the gathering, in one of the glass-walled huddle rooms, the couple had stalked off elsewhere in search for the good stuff, by which Scott had meant the alcohol. The man was practically chasing the champagne while Hope trailed along behind him like a dutiful parent watching over the man-child._


End file.
